KITCHEN TO COOKBOOK

You may remember her as a blogger, actress and VJ, but there are several other things about Maria Goretti that you’re about to find out, says Pearl Mathias, who spoke with the celebrity turned chef

After pursuing a baking course at Sophia Polytechnic, Maria Goretti got her Le Cordon Bleu certificate in Culinary and Bakery at Tante Marie in London. Her passion for cooking led her to start her own YouTube channel called ‘The Maria Goretti Corner’. But that wasn’t enough for this aspiring chef. She went on to pen a cookbook titled From My Kitchen to Yours, which recently won the National Award by Gourmand Awards Jury and has also been nominated for the Gourmand International Awards 2017. Read on to find out what Maria has up her sleeve in the coming year and what her initial reaction was when she received the congratulatory mail. Here are excerpts from our interview with her.

Tell us 5 things we don’t know about you.

1. I don’t make friends very easily.

2. I love designing interior spaces.

3. I have terrible stage fright.

4. I have an enormous appetite.

5. I love stitching.

What was your initial reaction when you found out that you had won the National Award for your book From My Kitchen To Yours by the Gourmand Awards jury?
When I found out that my book won the National round in my category, I read the mail and was quiet for a while. I thought that I should wait for a bit, assuming that the mail came to me by mistake.

What ideas do you have up your sleeve for the second half of the year?
I already have plans in motion for my second book. Now, I just have to execute it. I want to visit new places, learn a new cuisine and get back to dancing, which I really miss doing.

What is your favourite thing to prepare for people and why?
My favourite thing to cook for people is actually the most recent dish I have learnt to cook. This is because my friends are constantly tasting everything that I make.

What is the one dish that you absolutely resent walking into the kitchen to make?
The one thing that I absolutely don’t like getting into the kitchen to make is tea.

Name three ingredients that your kitchen feels incomplete without.
My kitchen would be incomplete without salt, butter and eggs.

If you could live on one dish for the rest of your life, what would it be?
I could live on dal, baingan baaja, fried fish and rice for the rest of my life.

If you could take a traditional dish and make your own variant of it, what dish would you pick and how would you go about revamping it?
I love the Vindaloo prepared by my mother. I wouldn’t want to change it, but I would love to stuff it into Chinese buns.

A word of advice you would like to give people who are slightly hesitant to enter the kitchen because of their lack of culinary skill?
The worst that could happen is that the dish is a complete mess. And, if at all that happens, all you have to do is start again. Learning to see the fun in that is the best part.

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